Parlee Beach Provincial Park
Parlee Beach Provincial Park is a provincial park located in Pointe-du-Chêne, New Brunswick, Canada.
Geography
Parlee Beach Provincial Park is located in eastern Westmorland County fronting the Northumberland Strait on the northeast side of Pointe-du-Chêne and forming the boundary with the community of Cap-Brulé.History
The park and beach received its name in 1959 in honour of T. Babbitt Parlee, the former Minister of Municipal Affairs in the ministry of New Brunswick Premier Hugh John Flemming; Parlee died in an airplane crash in 1957.The park extends south from the beach approximately to Main Street, with the campground located on the eastern boundary. In 1989, The Beach Boys played a successful concert to approximately 20,000 fans at a temporary concert stage on a large mowed green space between Main Street and the beach.
Each spring the provincial government replaces sand on the beach that is lost due to winter storm erosion and storm surge damage.
Present day
The property is owned by the Government of New Brunswick and operated by the Department of Tourism and Parks. Parlee Beach Provincial Park includes the following facilities:- Parlee Beach, arguably the most popular beach in New Brunswick
- a 190-site campground
- a day-use picnic area
- a restaurant
- a canteen
- change houses
- showers
- washrooms
- a playground
- parking lots with a capacity for over 1,000 vehicles. Day rates for parking as of 2024 are as follows:
- * $17.39 per vehicle
- * $13.05 per motorcycle
- * $73.91 per bus
- * $143.04 for a season pass
The waters of the Northumberland Strait are sometimes marketed as having some of the warmest ocean waters on the east coast of North America north of Virginia. Parlee Beach Provincial Park is one of New Brunswick's most popular recreational areas, and in 2011 had more than 400,000 visitation.
Visitation may have peaked in 2016 when there were 23,569 daily visitor permits sold that year. That number declined to 17,110 permits in 2017 and 15,287 in 2018. The recent decline appears to have been a result of negative publicity resulting from elevated fecal coliform counts in the water.